serghei
Senior Member
We're also worse than Real Madrid in the final third and Real has more options to break a parked bus as they have tall players who can use their head to score goals while we have midgets.
The overall approach is similar. Teams alternate periods of domination and sitting back based on the result (which indicates a degree of pragmatism, which is clearly visible), inviting pressure then doing a pretty solid job absorbing it.
Some differences appear on transition. Madrid are more direct, and play on the counter, but can be exposed to counter pressing in the first 4-5 seconds after they get the ball back. While we are still more possession orientated, less likely to lose the ball once we get it back, but also less likely to form a cohesive attack in 2-3 passes. This is both a plus and a minus. We are hard to play against for Madrid because our positional game on possession is probably the best in Europe along with City's, while having a better defense. So they don't have many chances to counter us, and in the rare cases they do, we are well positioned to deal with them.
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